It’s taken a few months, but this is the climax of our longline video series. Here’s where we get into all the nuts and bolts of how to actually get your line tight in a safe manner. First off, I should say, there are ways to do this that don’t involve pulleys. In the interest [...]

This video is a fairly short one because there’s far too much to address related to webbing to get it all into one video. Instead, I am going to cover a couple of important and mostly universal topics, and then leave the specifics (tubular, flat, nylon, polyester, etc) to a series of individual webbing review [...]

I’ve heard conflicting theories about what water (from rain, from wet feet, etc) does to standing tension of a slackline. Mostly these theories look at nylon lines, which are hydrophilic (meaning they easily soak up water). Polyester is hydrophobic, so there is less concern there, as it’s difficult to saturate polyester with water. We know [...]

Knots and line lockers You have to attach the line to the anchor sling (and your tightening system) somehow. Since the beginning, slackliners were tying knots and using hitches to rig their lines. Sometime in the early-to-mid 2000s, the use of a chain-link line locker became popular. These reduce the ‘folds’ in the webbing, allowing [...]

This will be the easiest topic for us to cover, because there really isn’t that much to talk about. We need to discuss the different types of anchor slings, and the different ways you can rig them. In a broad sense, the two types of slings are “homemade” and “manufactured”. Homemade slings are anything you [...]

I’m always improving little aspects of my slackline setup, and in early 2010 I realized that the towel strips I was using would be way better if they were tubes instead of strips. I started using duct tape to make them into tubes, and then eventually began to sew them. The strips fray and give [...]

If you’ve spent any amount of time on this site you probably know I am a fan of line-lockers. They keep the webbing flat, protect it reasonably well, and for nylon webbing typically ensure about 95% of rated strength (instead of the 50 or 65% that a knot might). The first line lockers (that I [...]

A while ago I published a long-in-the-making article on my custom built Kofi webbing anchors. The article is really dense, but covers most of the aspects of designing a webbing anchor — I published it so that most readers can appreciate the work that the folks at Landcruising and Balance Community put into designing their [...]

This article, for most readers, is meant to just be a bit of a curiosity. I am not encouraging you to build your own webbing anchor device. Why not? Well, unless you have access to: machining equipment; a qualified engineer who can double check that your materials and tolerances are safe for the loads the [...]

It’s taken a few months, but this is the climax of our longline video series. Here’s where we get into all the nuts and bolts of how to actually get your line tight in a safe manner. First off, I should say, there are ways to do this that don’t involve pulleys. In the interest [...]

I definitely have left lines up for a few days before in remote spots (e.g. camping on an island), and occasionally I’ll meet someone who has a lowline or even maybe a highline that has been up for a year or more. So, a natural question to ask, is what affect might the sun (UV) [...]

This video is a fairly short one because there’s far too much to address related to webbing to get it all into one video. Instead, I am going to cover a couple of important and mostly universal topics, and then leave the specifics (tubular, flat, nylon, polyester, etc) to a series of individual webbing review [...]

I’ve heard conflicting theories about what water (from rain, from wet feet, etc) does to standing tension of a slackline. Mostly these theories look at nylon lines, which are hydrophilic (meaning they easily soak up water). Polyester is hydrophobic, so there is less concern there, as it’s difficult to saturate polyester with water. We know [...]

Threaded line is one of the most old-school slackline concepts for making stronger lines. The jury, however, is still out on whether it actually makes your line much stronger (or, at minimum, the relationship between the two lines and the overall strength). The basic premise is that a tubular line is hollow, and thus we [...]

Knots and line lockers You have to attach the line to the anchor sling (and your tightening system) somehow. Since the beginning, slackliners were tying knots and using hitches to rig their lines. Sometime in the early-to-mid 2000s, the use of a chain-link line locker became popular. These reduce the ‘folds’ in the webbing, allowing [...]

This will be the easiest topic for us to cover, because there really isn’t that much to talk about. We need to discuss the different types of anchor slings, and the different ways you can rig them. In a broad sense, the two types of slings are “homemade” and “manufactured”. Homemade slings are anything you [...]

I’m always improving little aspects of my slackline setup, and in early 2010 I realized that the towel strips I was using would be way better if they were tubes instead of strips. I started using duct tape to make them into tubes, and then eventually began to sew them. The strips fray and give [...]

I was at REI the other day and happened to notice a spool of camouflage webbing in the climbing department. Typically REI is not known for its adventurous webbing selection — Bluewater makes several colors of webbing yet green and purple are consistently the only two the REI stocks (possibly the two most boring colors [...]

If you’ve spent any amount of time on this site you probably know I am a fan of line-lockers. They keep the webbing flat, protect it reasonably well, and for nylon webbing typically ensure about 95% of rated strength (instead of the 50 or 65% that a knot might). The first line lockers (that I [...]

Chongo mount is a technique employed to get up on the line from the side, primarily used in remounting highlines after a fall, or for any other line from the mantle position (for instance, a 7- or 8-foot-high slackline). I taught myself to Chongo before I knew what it was, and without any real guidance. [...]

August 27 and 28 we rigged a 70ft slackline between the footbridge and the cape that makes up much of South Lake Union Park in Seattle. Probably a dozen or so different slackers came out, plus a few folks gave it a shot despite never having slacklined. Overall, this line far exceeded my expectations. Between [...]

It used to be that “slackline” meant any one-inch tubular rock climbing webbing pulled reasonably taut so that it could be walked by a human. Then people started using Type18 flat webbing. Then polyester webbings. Then 2-inch flat and tubular webbing. And so on. Rigging methods now involve not just the old-school “primitive” or “Ellington” [...]

Gibbon USA invited me to be an official judge for the Gibbon Games in Salt Lake City, UT, and I couldn’t be happier. Overall the experience was amazing, and I had a chance to not only catch up with old friends but make many, many new ones. The video at right contains some practice session [...]

The Stranger is running an article on the emerging slackline debacle that kicked off a week or so ago when a security officer stopped me in Cal Anderson park and insisted slacklining was illegal. I posted the details previously, and to briefly summarize: the police were called, slacklining is not illegal, does not (in the [...]

After the whole fully-public ordeal with the legalization of slackline in Seattle, many people have written to me privately asking for suggestions or sharing of whatever resources I may have in order to assist them in pursuing a similar course of action in their own communities. Unfortunately some of you are up against a tougher [...]

I’ve written about some access issues and confusion with parks employees in Seattle as long ago as 2009. This has mostly been an isolated issue. In the last three weeks, several people from our community have been ejected from parks around Washington. On July 24, 2011, while slacklining at Cal Anderson park, I had yet [...]

Sometimes deals can be found on webbing from obscure vendors, sometimes not; I ended up with 60ft of milspec this way once after ordering 60ft of Type18. Of course the vendor refunded me and told me to keep the webbing, so maybe that wasn’t such a bad deal. Just before we left for Ghana I [...]